Rise of the Triad Review

Rise of the Triad is more than just a remake of the classic PC game Rise of the Triad which originally came out in 1994. Now a lot of time has passed and we have Rise of the Triad in 2013 and it’s an amazing game. Rise of the Triad is an First Person twitch shooter and it stays true to its roots. You will find all kinds of crazy modes such as dog mode with a supersonic bark and GOD mode via pickups in multiplayer which will have you wanting to throw your keyboard. Rise of the Triad has a story. you play as a member of H.U.N.T. (High-Risk United Nations Task-Force) and you are tasked to San Nicolas Island to investigate a terrorism group called the Triads which look a lot like Nazi soldiers that are wearing the symbol of the Triad. Your main mission is to infiltrate the island and basically kill everyone and everything, this hones back to the days of simple story and awesome gameplay.

Speaking of gameplay, Rise of the Triad is one of the fastest FPS games I have played in a long time. If you love games like Unreal Tournament and Quake you will feel right at home with Rise of the Triad. As you’re playing through the campaign you’ll be collecting coins with ankh symbols on them they will bring your overall score up during the level, they can also be found in secret areas. Time is part of each mission as there is a clock timing how long it takes to progress through each level. There’s also mild platforming mixed in around each level with things like bounce pads, and of course tons of carnage bullets will be flying around in addition to rockets you must avoid.

If you don’t have a rocket launcher in your hands during the campaign it almost feels like you’re doing something wrong. There’s a huge array of weapons that are available to use in campaign as well as in multiplayer. The basics include pistols, MP40 sub-machine gun, rocket launchers, the firebomb, the dark staff, the very awesome Excalibur (which is a one-hit wonder knocking people into the stratosphere), and also the split missile which allows you to hit two people at once from opposing sides.

Controls for Rise of the Triad are pretty basic actually, ‘WASD’ keys are used for movement and don’t forget about Q which is used for knife kills. If you can land a knife kill in multiplayer then I’m impressed, that really takes some skill. Now Rise of the Triad of course works with mouse and keyboard and it also supports controllers. I don’t know why anyone would want to use a controller, especially with the pace of the game, but hey if you need to then go ahead and use the training wheels. The in-game taunts are the ones from the original game which is really cool. the game will also throw comments at you when you die in-game such as “you should stick to the controller”. Remember that since this is Rise of the Triad such things as rocket jumping will take you a long way, especially in multiplayer.

The sounds for Rise of the Triad are actually really awesome. The soundtrack is all heavy metal music by Burying the Trend which really helps the player stay focused in the game. One thing with PC games that people always ask is ‘how are the graphics, though’? Well Rise of the Triad is run on the Unreal engine so you will be able to run this game on a wide range of computers and if you crank the settings to ludicrous it will push even the best PC on the market. That’s really awesome if you ask me. There is a wide range of commands that can be put into the command console which is like using cheat codes, but they can really makes the game interesting depending on which ones you choose to use in-game.

Rise of the Triad has a huge multiplayer section and man, it is awesome. There are several game types in ROTT such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag. I have invested some serious time into the multiplayer. I can tell you from experience that this is what this game is built for and it excels big time at it. Rise of the Triad also had dedicated servers which makes this a great game to play whether online or at LAN parties.

The action in multiplayer is extremely fast and fun to play with friends and new people online. I have played match upon match just trying to climb up to 1st place. It’s a ton of fun with all the weapons that you have and each character has a different movement speed, which is something to look into when you are choosing a character. The multiplayer action will impress you and keep you coming back and asking for more, especially after you have to the chance to pick up GOD mode and kill people instantly, or start seeing players explode on screen from the various types of rocket launchers.

Final Verdict: Rise of the Triad has an extremely high Replay Ability with an awesome single player and super fun multiplayer that will bring you back over and over again. ROTT is also 100% modifiable with a map editor in addition to mod tools that are coming out very soon and that is always a great reason to play this game over and over. There will also be FREE DLC coming to Rise of the Triad and you can get all this for the low price of $14.99. That is super cheap for this much content. I would recommend that if you like FPS games and old school games with some new flare, you NEED to pick up Rise of the Triad.